If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

All transactions on PayPal and elsewhere are demanded to be redeemed in lawful money as found in Section 16 of the Fed Act and at Title 12 USC 411.

Thank you so much for enjoying StSC! If you are getting popups please try clearing your browser cache.

A federal grand jury has returned a new indictment against Hillsboro resident Winston Shrout, accusing him of defrauding U.S. financial institutions by issuing bogus documents and failing to file six years of income tax returns.

The grand jury returned an indictment charging Shrout with 13 counts of making, presenting and transmitting fictitious financial instruments and six counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

He's accused of making and issuing more than 300 fake "International Bills of Exchange'' on his own behalf and for credit to third parties. The government contends Shrout falsely claimed the bills had value and purported them to be worth more than $100 trillion.

The indictment also alleges Shrout promoted and marketed the fake financial documents to pay off debts.

He's also accused of failing to file income tax returns from 2009 through 2014 after receiving income for presentations at seminars and licensing fees for the sale of DVD recordings and private client consultations through his business Winston Shrout Solutions in Commerce.

By 2014, Shrout received gross income of more than $21,500, according to the indictment.

"Winston Shrout is one of the biggest sovereign citizen gurus of the last decade. This is a big deal, '' said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow with Anti-Defamation League center on extremism, in Ohio.

Anti-government sovereign citizens claim that paper money is unconstitutional, with gold and silver the only lawful forms of currency, so they find it easy to rationalize creating their own forms of paper money, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

"This is a very longstanding tactic in the sovereign citizen movement,'' Pitcavage said. "They love to use bogus financial instruments. Some use bogus checks. Some look like money orders. They use these to pay off the IRS or other debtors.''

Shrout was previously indicted in December on charges of failure to file tax returns. On that indictment, he told the court in February that he didn't want to be represented by a court-appointed attorney, and a judge allowed him to represent himself but named an assistant federal public defender to advise him. The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, according to court records.

Shrout is scheduled to return to court on this new indictment March 31.

If convicted, Shrout faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on each count of making, presenting and transmitting fake financial documents and one year for each count of failure to file income tax returns.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Carolline D. Ciraolo of the U.S. Justice Department's Tax Division announced the new indictment in a prepared release Wednesday.

GUILTY
In case you haven’t seen the ‘news’, the USA vs. WINSTON SHROUT ended in a
guilty on all charges verdict. In this case there were ‘charges’ made by US
Attorney against the entity known as WINSTON SHROUT and then the job of the
attorney was to
somehow make a connection of WINSTON SHROUT and
Winston Shrout. This is always the standard method ... nothing new here.
When Winston motioned the court in a prove up as to just how that connection
was made, the judge immediately dismissed the motion. Win
ston was
prevented from questioning how the connection was made.
My question at
that time was basically what was the court afraid might be exposed in a prove
up type hearing? “Dismissed” ... okay, let’s move along.
It was standard procedure that when Winst
on made any motion
it was routinely
dismissed. This is not some ‘secret’, anyone can go to the court record and
trace the course of events for himself.
And there were no restrictions to the public. Anyone could have come and
watched the trial. I am not
telling some big ‘secret’ here.
But early on, t
his was starting to look like a slam
-
dunk for the prosecution.
If that was the case, then what ‘items’ could be inserted so that the whole
exercise was not just a total waste of time? I could see that it woul
d be a real
effort. I was blocked continually
.
Of course, I filed all of my assignment of reversionary interest and
authentication paperwork into the case, but to no effect as there was an agenda
here. I could see that this was not like when I get a traf
fic stop and after
running my STRAW MAN on their NCIC computer, the officer just comes and
gives back my paperwork, and sends me on my way. This is a whole lot
different from that. The ‘decision’ had already been made, and nothing would
stand in the way
of that.
Okay. I have no regrets. I have no accusations to make against anyone. I have
for years encouraged people to look in the ‘mirror’. For instance, when people
would contact me and observe that I had been indicted ... remember the mirror

... I would
just say the reverse of the concept and reply that ‘no, the government
did not indict me, the government indicted itself’. And they do this on a
continual basis.
Every battle field commander knows that to win or lose one battle does not win
or lose a war.
I am fully confident that the ‘big’ war has already been decided,
but yet like the Japanese soldier who was found decades after the end of WWII
on some remote island in the Pacific
who still thought the war was waging
, we
have some who think they can sti
ll win the war by picking off this or that
soldier. It won’t work.
Most people are not high enough in the ‘chain of command’ to experience what
I have had to deal with. Again, when I get pulled over in a low
-
level traffic
situation and after running my S
TRAW MAN on NCIC, the officer just sends me
on my way, that is on the day to day stuff most of us deal with. But since I
operate at some of the higher levels, and much of it on the international level, I
run into things that 99% of people don’t experience
. Naturally, the question
many would have is whether or not what happened to WINSTON will have
effect on them. I would guess, that no, in most normal circumstances that they
would not be positioned to be involved as is the case being described here.
I
h
ope that my words here would not be considered as vanity. This is not my
intent.
As the baseball player Yogi Be
rr
a
used to say: it ain’t over
‘
til
it’s
over.
In some respects, the ‘Guilty’ verdict actually helped me, as it
will
sort out a lot
of those who
are just ‘curious’ about all of this but who have no real
convictions. Some people who come upon a traffic accident faint at the sight of
blood. Some others of us who have a bit of first
-
aid training would be more
effective as we apply compresses over w
ounds or even a tourniquet to stop the
bleeding. Hopefully the volume of emails will drop off from the merely curious
giving me more time to teach
advanced first
-
aid technology. In my college years
I did take advanced first
-
aid. I have come upon situati
ons where that advanced
training may have been essential. And no, I do not faint at the sight of blood.
So, what now? Was it a total loss? I will go through the normal procedures with
sentencing and the appropriate appeal process. Hopefully, if it come
s to that,
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will see ‘things’ a bit differently. And I think
that will be the case. For those who don’t know, judges are trained at different

educational levels. The higher up you go, the better trained and educated the
judges are. Are reversals possible? Could be ... we’ll see.
But let me cue one important thing I was able to accomplish. The Office of
International Treasury Control has been in existence since 1995. I have exposed
this in several of the public arenas w
here I have spoken as I have shown my
official association with that. For instance, when I received an official
appointment into the OITC in 2010, Dr. Ray C. Dam as sole arbiter
‘noticed’ the
appropriate officers in the US Government and the United Nation
s. Look at the
word ‘noticed’. For those who are a bit educated in some of this, you would be
aware that a ‘notice’ has little weight ... ‘I got noticed, so what?’.
But when I was able to take the stand and give evidence in my own defense,
with the help of
some ‘angel’, I was able to put my appointment and
accompanying Apostille into ‘evidence’ meaning now that OITC has moved
beyond ‘notice’ as I was able to make the ‘record’. Oops. Now can the US say ...
‘so what?’, or is there now a responsibility/liabili
ty? That was one small
‘victory’, but obviously it did not win the battle.
So, life goes on. Do I have any animosity against anyone for this? No. In fact I
openly forgave the prosecutor right there in court. Do I have any bad feelings
toward the jury
even though they deliberated by my count over 8 hours, which
would normally result in a ‘hung jury’ and a mistrial? Not at all. I suppose they
had their ‘instructions’ and did their ‘duty’. They will have no bad feelings from
me. But if they acted agai
nst the evidence and against their own conscience, I
can only imagine the amount of karma they took on. That I am sorry for, but I
can do nothing for them. And this is something for all of us to consider
that our
acts, especially those acts which would g
o against our conscience and higher
selves, may have dire impacts on our lives, until we can come to terms with that
karma, and deal with it.
Will I solve this
problem in the US court system?
Maybe
,
but
there appears to
be little remedy there. I will tak
e this up at the international level. I suspect
that I will shortly have this resolved. When I do that I will write another article
which will be entitled
PROBLEM SOLVED
. Then this article entitled
GUILTY
will
become moot.
There is an old say
ing
: every tu
b has to stand on its own bottom. Each
individual has to take responsibility for themselves. Does what happens to John
or Mary directl
y affect everyone on the planet?
Probably not
,
unless you
consider the ‘butterfly effect’
. But regardless of what John
or Mary experiences,
everyone else has to take responsibility for themselves. I live within this body
and the outer layer of skin is as far as I go. Everything else is ‘not me’. So, what
may or may not happen to WINSTON or even Winston, ... every tub has
to stand
on its own bottom.
Stand in your own truth.
Winston

A federal jury Friday returned across-the board guilty verdicts against Winston Shrout, a prominent sovereign citizen charged with 13 counts of issuing fake financial documents to banks and the U.S. Treasury and six counts of willful failure to file tax returns from 2009 to 2014.

The jury foreman stood and read each guilty verdict for each of the 19 counts as Shrout watched from his seat at the defense table. Shrout displayed no expression.

He will be sentenced at 11 a.m. on Aug. 1.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones polled each of the jurors to ensure the 12-member panel was unanimous in its findings. As the jury foreman began reading each of the verdicts, one juror teared up. A fellow juror reached out to hold her hand as the rest of the verdicts were announced.

The judge ordered Shrout to turn over his passport and restricted him from any travel outside of Oregon without prior court permission.

The jury deliberated for about five hours over two days following a three-day trial.

Government lawyers argued Shrout aimed to cheat the Treasury and banks, and preached his illegal schemes to hundreds of others in paid seminars across the country and abroad.

He purposely sent a package of 1,000 homemade International Bills of Exchange, each purporting to be a legal tender for a trillion dollars, to a small community bank in Chicago "hoping to slip one by an unsuspecting banker,'' U.S. Tax Division trial lawyer Scott Wexler told jurors.

Investigators found a copy of the U.S. Tax Code and the U.S. Department of Justice's criminal tax manual on Shrout's laptop computer, seized one night in the parking lot of The Grotto in Portland after he concluded a seminar there. The computer also contained an alert from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, cautioning banks and federal savings institutions to be on the lookout for the circulation of such fictitious financial documents, Wexler said.

Shrout was driven by "simple greed,'' Wexler told jurors during his closing argument. He earned a total of $562,224 from a carpentry pension, plus royalties and payments for his seminars, between 2009 and 2014, the years he failed to file tax returns, the prosecutor said.

"He intended to get and keep as much money as he could,'' Wexler said. "The defendant knew he didn't have legal authority to print legal tender of the United States from his home computer... The defendant didn't file his tax returns because he didn't want to.''

The 69-year-old took the stand in his own defense, claiming he was given authority to make the financial documents from the Office of International Treasury Control in order to help relieve debts from mortgage foreclosures. The office Shrout cited, though, is considered by the U.S. government a fraudulent organization that claims ties to the United Nations and the Federal Reserve.

His standby lawyer Ruben Iniguez stressed that "not a single penny was paid out or transacted by anyone'' as a result of the 13 fictitious documents Shrout sent. He argued that the government was simply out to "muzzle'' his client.

Shrout also testified that he hadn't paid taxes for about 20 years, joining what he estimated are about 65 million other people in what he called "tax avoidance.'' Iniguez, in his closing argument, argued that Shrout held a firm and sincere belief that he didn't have to pay taxes.

Shrout declined comment after the verdicts were announced.

Making, creating and issuing fictitious financial instruments is a felony. Each count could bring up to 25 years in prison, according to prosecutors. The failure to file tax returns is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison.